A mobile communication network typically contains many different nodes providing radio access to mobile terminals. These nodes may be distributed over a specific area and the nodes may be distributed such that a specific service area is provided with radio access for the mobile terminals. Typically, homogeneous networks, i.e. networks complying with a single standard such as 3G and the like, are designed such that the corresponding nodes are distributed over the service area, wherein each corresponding node provides radio access in a specific coverage area. That is, the service area results from a combination of the coverage areas of the corresponding nodes.
In order to provide good service to a user, the coverage areas are usually overlapping such that a handover from one corresponding node to another corresponding node may be carried out without disconnecting a mobile terminal from radio access. Currently, it is sufficient for mobile terminals to scan in appropriate intervals for available radio access(es) at its present location and subsequently request a handover to a corresponding node providing radio access with a better service, e.g. providing the best signal strength at the location of the mobile terminal. However, scanning for potential radio access is time and energy consuming for the mobile terminal. For instance, there may be inter-frequency measurements employed, which may suspend ongoing services for short periods of time. In addition to this, in certain radio access technologies a radio discovery process may consume random access resources of the network.
Recently, there have been suggested heterogeneous networks for instance comprising different homogeneous networks using different radio access technologies. The heterogeneous network may comprise macro cells, micro cells, pico cells, and the like. The respective nodes providing radio access for the different cells may use different spectra and/or standards such as GSM, GPRS, 3G, 4G, LTE, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and the like. However, if a mobile terminal would scan for all available radio accesses in a heterogeneous network, just as it would do in a homogeneous network, the costs with respect to time and energy would increase drastically, as for a given location of the mobile terminal there may be many different types of radio accesses available using different spectra and/or standards, which need to be of course scanned should they be intended to be discovered.
Therefore, there is a need for improved solutions with regard to exploiting available radio accesses and an improved solution that is able to select an optimum, or the best radio access for a mobile terminal, which is, at the same time, minimizes the consumption of energy and processing resources. In other words, it is an object of the present invention to provide a radio access selection solution that 1) can provide the optimum/best service for a mobile terminal for a given location of the mobile terminal, 2) is cost-effective, i.e. saves time and energy resources, and 3) provides a reliable selection process even after the setup of a network.